Oct. 03 - 15
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Yesterday we arrived at the camping in dusk, now we can finally see what the camping does look like. It's a pretty nice and a very small one in the middle of the rainforest. There are a lot of animals, like spectacled flying foxes, frogs, toads and rats. Cassowaries and pythons are sometimes seen as well. In the middle of the camping is a little kangaroo nursery. We really like it here and we are planning to stay here for another night.
We decided to drive through the Daintree National park and see a bit more of it. This park is World Heritage listed, because of its diversity. It's also one of the few places in the world where the coral see meets the rainforest. Our first stop was at Thornton beach where we walked around a bit and saw a huge Lace Monitor. We did the same at Myall Beach. Both beaches are very beautiful, but the seas are a bit brown here, which is a pity.
Our next stop was at the Dubuji Boardwalk, where you could walk through the rainforest. Sometimes there were signs with an explanation which told us something about the rainforest. It was a bit boring, but luckily it wasn't a really long walk so we still had some time to spend on the beach. We took a swim and relaxed a bit at Cow Beach. We heard that it was a good place to snorkle, unfortunately the water wasn't really clear so we couldn't see anything.
For the evening we booked a night walk through the rainforest in Cooper Creek, to see some wildlife. We were with a group of 9 people and a guide. Below is a list of animals we spotted.
- Tree frogs
- Wolf spiders
- Water dragon
- Forest dragon
- Tawly frogmouth (a night bird)
- Python
- Wallaby
- White tail rat
- Tree line leaf tail gecko
- Flying foxes
- Bandicoot
The walk through the forest was very dark. We had to walk single file because the forest was very narrow. We switched order every 10 minutes, so the guide had some personal time for everyone. It was a very special experience! In the middle of the rainforest we all put out our torches, this was extremely dark. Also a bit scary because there are noises everywhere.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
We spent the night at the same place. After waking up we took another swim and went to a Mangrove Boardwalk. This was pretty nice. Afterwards we went to Cape Tribulation. During the road Yvonne picked up some "wild" mango's which tasted pretty good. It's strange, but all the fruit is very expensive here so this was really welcome.
To get to Cape Tribulation you have to cross a river by ferry. When we reached the other side we came more the less in the middle of nowhere. Of course there was a road, a few campings and a couple of things to do, but there are very few people, no mobile network coverage and after about 20 km you could only proceed with a 4WD. It was already getting late and we decided to visit a camping. Now we could do our laundry, have a nice shower, and recharge our batteries from our phones, laptop and camera.
Friday, October 13, 2006
No one disturbed us this night so we slept pretty good. After we woke up we discovered that we stayed at a pretty nice spot, near a beautiful river. Too bad there was a sign that warned us for crocodiles. One of the locals told us that he had only seen two crocodiles there since he lived there, and that he often swam there as well. We decided to take the risk and jumped into the river!
After the cooling swim we had to get our lock from the trunk fixed, so we headed to a Ford dealer, but they redirected us to a locksmith. They couldn't fix it right away and they had to order some parts. This joke would cost us around AUS $140... pretty much for a lock, but we didn't have a choice.
There was still a bit of time left, so we went to the Crystal Cascades. It's a rain-forest where a waterfall could be seen. We found it very beautiful, you can see a couple of pictures above. There was also a stinging tree. This tree is pretty dangerous so we had to watch out!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - Thursday, October 12, 2006
At 5.00 AM we had to get out of bed and around 7.00 AM we stepped into the car to start the trip to Cairns. There were three swedish people who joined us (Carolina, Erik & Marion), so we could share some fuel costs. At approximately 8.00 PM we arrived in Brisbane and we started to look for a hostel to stay for the night. We looked for 3 hours but couldn't find a good place and after that everything was closed. Luckily one of the swedish people was a truck driver and he took over. Meanwhile, we could get some sleep. Around 2.00 AM we all took a nap in the car until around 5.00 AM. We continued the journey for another two hours. Then we stopped again to get breakfast. There was a male Magpie 'defending' it's nest. This was pretty hilarious, because he attacked several persons on the head when they weren't looking. We laughed so hard we hurt our stomach!
After the breakfast we continued our trip. At the end of the afternoon we dropped Carolina and Erik in a hostel in Proserpine and continued for another two hours. We stopped at a rest area and cooked some macaroni and went to sleep. This was much more comfortable with three persons instead of five!
The next day we drove all the way to Cairns. We arrived around 4.30 PM and dropped off Marion at a hostel. Our lock from the trunk was broken, so we searched for a Ford dealer, but they were already closed. Now we had to wait for tomorrow. We went to a supermarket and got us some good food. It was time to search for a place to sleep, but it was very difficult because everywhere there were 'no camping'-signs. One thing we did find was a barbecue by one of the beaches. It was for public use, so we could just turn it on and cook on it! Very useful! Our mission to find a place to stay continued, but we just couldn't find a place. I think we drove for another 3 hours to find a spot but it was prohibited everywhere... we both were very tired, we just parked the car and hoped that we wouldn't get caught by the police.
Monday, October 9, 2006
Around 7.00 AM we continued our way to Sydney where we dropped the car for a couple of repairs. We checked in again in the hostel "Mate's Place". Jasper went to an internet cafe to upload some photo's and take care of some business and Yvonne went looking for some cheap camping equipment. In the evening there was free pizza available in the hostel, something we couldn't miss! We went to bed early because we had to get up very early for our trip to Cairns.
Sunday, October 8, 2006
The next morning we drove to "Euroka" (it's in Glenbrook) where a few kangaroos were. We visited this spot earlier with the group trip, but we wanted to see it again for ourselves and spend a little more time there. One baby kangaroo was drinking milk from his mother. You can see it in the picture below. After we spend some time with the kangaroos we took a little walk through the forests. We spotted a few birds and took some pictures.
We continued the trip and drove to Blackheath where a couple of very nice views and walks were. The first view we went to was "Evan's Lookout" and looked out over the Blue Mountains. Very nice. The other view was called Govett's Leap and had a great view over the Blue Mountains as well. There were a few walks and we choose one which took about 3 hours. The path took us to Pulpit Rock and back.
It was almost dark again so we had to look for a new place to stay. Because there were a few things wrong with the car we wanted to be in Sydney the next morning for a free repair. Better use the guarantees as good as possible! We headed back to Sydney, but stopped at a rest area called Bull Camp.
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Since we still didn't see any whales, we wanted to try it one more time. Of course we couldn't resist the free trip so we had to do it. Today we were lucky. Quite quickly a mother and a calf whale were spotted just near the coast. We watched them for a while and tried to make some photo's. That was pretty difficult because the boat wasn't very stable on the sea. Besides, the whales are more under the water then above. They only show themselves every now and then when they need to breath, afterwards they go under the water again for 5 or 10 minutes. Later on we spotted a male whale and another mother and calf. So we spotted five whales today!
After we returned from the whale-watchingtrip, it was time to get some food. We both really wanted a nice cool glass of cola, so we went to the supermarket to get it. Too bad the cooled cola was far more expensive than the normal cola. We hid the uncooled cola somewhere in the freezer, went out for dinner, returned to the supermarket and bought it. Pretty cheap and cooled cola now!
We drank the cooled cola and drove to Glenbrook, which was on the way to the Blue Mountains. It was already getting late so we decided to look for a place to sleep. Jasper was driving, but because he was driving slowly to look for a good spot, he was being stopped by the police! He had to do an alcohol test and show his driving license.
Friday, October 6, 2006
This morning we took our breakfast on the beach, and Yvonne took a swim. After that we went to Manly to look for a surf board and a good internet cafe to upload some photo's. We noticed that a surf board would cost a lot more money that we wanted to spend. We didn't buy anything, but at least we got ourselves some information. It seems that if you're new to surfing, you need a board which is at least a 6,6. This means it has to be 6 foot and 6 inches tall. Those boards cost at least $400 dollar. We had bad luck finding a good internet cafe. They were all slow so we decided not to waste our time too much. We also looked for some cheap second hand camping equipment, but we only found a store which was pretty expensive. It was already getting late so it was time to head back to Palm Beach, to sleep there again.
By the way, we called the whale watchers to ask if they saw any whales today, and they did :P
Thursday, October 5, 2006
As mentioned yesterday, we could do another free whale-watching trip. Pretty strange, but this time we didn't see any whales either. It was probably a bad week. The sea was wilder which made the trip itself more fun. Too bad we didn't see any other really interesting animals. Another voucher was offered for a new trip.
Because we had a car now, we could spend the night in it as well. We left Sydney and drove to Palm Beach, a really beautiful place to spend the night. At the beaches there were showers, cold of course but at least we could wash ourselves. This saved us some money and we could try out the car.
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Of course there are a lot of things we haven't seen yet. Whales are one of these things. So we decided to go whale-watching. For $80 AUS each we could join for a 4-hour boat-ride. A 99% guarantee was offered, so if we didn't see any whales, another free trip was offered. Probably the luck wasn't on our side, because we didn't see any whales. Luckily it was still fun, cruising with a catamaran on the sea. Besides, we did see some dolphins! That was cool.
Just after the trip we received a phone call that our car could be picked up!! We received a quick explanation about the differences between Dutch and Australian driving. You have to drive on the left side of the road, and if there are 'T2'-marks on the road, there have to be at least two persons in the car during rush hour. The reason for this is to reduce the amount of cars on the roads, it enforces car pooling. T4 is also possible. Another thing about the car: it's automatic, quite a difference, also because there's only a brake and a gas pedal. In the evening we took the car for a test drive. Eventually we got lost because we forgot to bring a map, but after an hour or something we could finally find our way back.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Because it was a while ago we updated the weblog, we needed to catch up with a lot of things. That's why we reserved a couple of hours to write our stories and post it on the web, together with some photo's. Another thing we did today was taking a walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. This is a really popular walk and is listed in the top 10 things to do when you visit Sydney. The walk took around two and a half hours and it was beautiful. During the walk we made some pictures, which we displayed below.
Yesterday we arrived at the camping in dusk, now we can finally see what the camping does look like. It's a pretty nice and a very small one in the middle of the rainforest. There are a lot of animals, like spectacled flying foxes, frogs, toads and rats. Cassowaries and pythons are sometimes seen as well. In the middle of the camping is a little kangaroo nursery. We really like it here and we are planning to stay here for another night.
We decided to drive through the Daintree National park and see a bit more of it. This park is World Heritage listed, because of its diversity. It's also one of the few places in the world where the coral see meets the rainforest. Our first stop was at Thornton beach where we walked around a bit and saw a huge Lace Monitor. We did the same at Myall Beach. Both beaches are very beautiful, but the seas are a bit brown here, which is a pity.
Our next stop was at the Dubuji Boardwalk, where you could walk through the rainforest. Sometimes there were signs with an explanation which told us something about the rainforest. It was a bit boring, but luckily it wasn't a really long walk so we still had some time to spend on the beach. We took a swim and relaxed a bit at Cow Beach. We heard that it was a good place to snorkle, unfortunately the water wasn't really clear so we couldn't see anything.
For the evening we booked a night walk through the rainforest in Cooper Creek, to see some wildlife. We were with a group of 9 people and a guide. Below is a list of animals we spotted.
- Tree frogs
- Wolf spiders
- Water dragon
- Forest dragon
- Tawly frogmouth (a night bird)
- Python
- Wallaby
- White tail rat
- Tree line leaf tail gecko
- Flying foxes
- Bandicoot
The walk through the forest was very dark. We had to walk single file because the forest was very narrow. We switched order every 10 minutes, so the guide had some personal time for everyone. It was a very special experience! In the middle of the rainforest we all put out our torches, this was extremely dark. Also a bit scary because there are noises everywhere.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
We spent the night at the same place. After waking up we took another swim and went to a Mangrove Boardwalk. This was pretty nice. Afterwards we went to Cape Tribulation. During the road Yvonne picked up some "wild" mango's which tasted pretty good. It's strange, but all the fruit is very expensive here so this was really welcome.
To get to Cape Tribulation you have to cross a river by ferry. When we reached the other side we came more the less in the middle of nowhere. Of course there was a road, a few campings and a couple of things to do, but there are very few people, no mobile network coverage and after about 20 km you could only proceed with a 4WD. It was already getting late and we decided to visit a camping. Now we could do our laundry, have a nice shower, and recharge our batteries from our phones, laptop and camera.
Friday, October 13, 2006
No one disturbed us this night so we slept pretty good. After we woke up we discovered that we stayed at a pretty nice spot, near a beautiful river. Too bad there was a sign that warned us for crocodiles. One of the locals told us that he had only seen two crocodiles there since he lived there, and that he often swam there as well. We decided to take the risk and jumped into the river!
After the cooling swim we had to get our lock from the trunk fixed, so we headed to a Ford dealer, but they redirected us to a locksmith. They couldn't fix it right away and they had to order some parts. This joke would cost us around AUS $140... pretty much for a lock, but we didn't have a choice.
There was still a bit of time left, so we went to the Crystal Cascades. It's a rain-forest where a waterfall could be seen. We found it very beautiful, you can see a couple of pictures above. There was also a stinging tree. This tree is pretty dangerous so we had to watch out!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - Thursday, October 12, 2006
At 5.00 AM we had to get out of bed and around 7.00 AM we stepped into the car to start the trip to Cairns. There were three swedish people who joined us (Carolina, Erik & Marion), so we could share some fuel costs. At approximately 8.00 PM we arrived in Brisbane and we started to look for a hostel to stay for the night. We looked for 3 hours but couldn't find a good place and after that everything was closed. Luckily one of the swedish people was a truck driver and he took over. Meanwhile, we could get some sleep. Around 2.00 AM we all took a nap in the car until around 5.00 AM. We continued the journey for another two hours. Then we stopped again to get breakfast. There was a male Magpie 'defending' it's nest. This was pretty hilarious, because he attacked several persons on the head when they weren't looking. We laughed so hard we hurt our stomach!
After the breakfast we continued our trip. At the end of the afternoon we dropped Carolina and Erik in a hostel in Proserpine and continued for another two hours. We stopped at a rest area and cooked some macaroni and went to sleep. This was much more comfortable with three persons instead of five!
The next day we drove all the way to Cairns. We arrived around 4.30 PM and dropped off Marion at a hostel. Our lock from the trunk was broken, so we searched for a Ford dealer, but they were already closed. Now we had to wait for tomorrow. We went to a supermarket and got us some good food. It was time to search for a place to sleep, but it was very difficult because everywhere there were 'no camping'-signs. One thing we did find was a barbecue by one of the beaches. It was for public use, so we could just turn it on and cook on it! Very useful! Our mission to find a place to stay continued, but we just couldn't find a place. I think we drove for another 3 hours to find a spot but it was prohibited everywhere... we both were very tired, we just parked the car and hoped that we wouldn't get caught by the police.
Monday, October 9, 2006
Around 7.00 AM we continued our way to Sydney where we dropped the car for a couple of repairs. We checked in again in the hostel "Mate's Place". Jasper went to an internet cafe to upload some photo's and take care of some business and Yvonne went looking for some cheap camping equipment. In the evening there was free pizza available in the hostel, something we couldn't miss! We went to bed early because we had to get up very early for our trip to Cairns.
Sunday, October 8, 2006
The next morning we drove to "Euroka" (it's in Glenbrook) where a few kangaroos were. We visited this spot earlier with the group trip, but we wanted to see it again for ourselves and spend a little more time there. One baby kangaroo was drinking milk from his mother. You can see it in the picture below. After we spend some time with the kangaroos we took a little walk through the forests. We spotted a few birds and took some pictures.
We continued the trip and drove to Blackheath where a couple of very nice views and walks were. The first view we went to was "Evan's Lookout" and looked out over the Blue Mountains. Very nice. The other view was called Govett's Leap and had a great view over the Blue Mountains as well. There were a few walks and we choose one which took about 3 hours. The path took us to Pulpit Rock and back.
It was almost dark again so we had to look for a new place to stay. Because there were a few things wrong with the car we wanted to be in Sydney the next morning for a free repair. Better use the guarantees as good as possible! We headed back to Sydney, but stopped at a rest area called Bull Camp.
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Since we still didn't see any whales, we wanted to try it one more time. Of course we couldn't resist the free trip so we had to do it. Today we were lucky. Quite quickly a mother and a calf whale were spotted just near the coast. We watched them for a while and tried to make some photo's. That was pretty difficult because the boat wasn't very stable on the sea. Besides, the whales are more under the water then above. They only show themselves every now and then when they need to breath, afterwards they go under the water again for 5 or 10 minutes. Later on we spotted a male whale and another mother and calf. So we spotted five whales today!
After we returned from the whale-watchingtrip, it was time to get some food. We both really wanted a nice cool glass of cola, so we went to the supermarket to get it. Too bad the cooled cola was far more expensive than the normal cola. We hid the uncooled cola somewhere in the freezer, went out for dinner, returned to the supermarket and bought it. Pretty cheap and cooled cola now!
We drank the cooled cola and drove to Glenbrook, which was on the way to the Blue Mountains. It was already getting late so we decided to look for a place to sleep. Jasper was driving, but because he was driving slowly to look for a good spot, he was being stopped by the police! He had to do an alcohol test and show his driving license.
Friday, October 6, 2006
This morning we took our breakfast on the beach, and Yvonne took a swim. After that we went to Manly to look for a surf board and a good internet cafe to upload some photo's. We noticed that a surf board would cost a lot more money that we wanted to spend. We didn't buy anything, but at least we got ourselves some information. It seems that if you're new to surfing, you need a board which is at least a 6,6. This means it has to be 6 foot and 6 inches tall. Those boards cost at least $400 dollar. We had bad luck finding a good internet cafe. They were all slow so we decided not to waste our time too much. We also looked for some cheap second hand camping equipment, but we only found a store which was pretty expensive. It was already getting late so it was time to head back to Palm Beach, to sleep there again.
By the way, we called the whale watchers to ask if they saw any whales today, and they did :P
Thursday, October 5, 2006
As mentioned yesterday, we could do another free whale-watching trip. Pretty strange, but this time we didn't see any whales either. It was probably a bad week. The sea was wilder which made the trip itself more fun. Too bad we didn't see any other really interesting animals. Another voucher was offered for a new trip.
Because we had a car now, we could spend the night in it as well. We left Sydney and drove to Palm Beach, a really beautiful place to spend the night. At the beaches there were showers, cold of course but at least we could wash ourselves. This saved us some money and we could try out the car.
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Of course there are a lot of things we haven't seen yet. Whales are one of these things. So we decided to go whale-watching. For $80 AUS each we could join for a 4-hour boat-ride. A 99% guarantee was offered, so if we didn't see any whales, another free trip was offered. Probably the luck wasn't on our side, because we didn't see any whales. Luckily it was still fun, cruising with a catamaran on the sea. Besides, we did see some dolphins! That was cool.
Just after the trip we received a phone call that our car could be picked up!! We received a quick explanation about the differences between Dutch and Australian driving. You have to drive on the left side of the road, and if there are 'T2'-marks on the road, there have to be at least two persons in the car during rush hour. The reason for this is to reduce the amount of cars on the roads, it enforces car pooling. T4 is also possible. Another thing about the car: it's automatic, quite a difference, also because there's only a brake and a gas pedal. In the evening we took the car for a test drive. Eventually we got lost because we forgot to bring a map, but after an hour or something we could finally find our way back.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Because it was a while ago we updated the weblog, we needed to catch up with a lot of things. That's why we reserved a couple of hours to write our stories and post it on the web, together with some photo's. Another thing we did today was taking a walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. This is a really popular walk and is listed in the top 10 things to do when you visit Sydney. The walk took around two and a half hours and it was beautiful. During the walk we made some pictures, which we displayed below.
posted by Yvonne en Jasper at
3:33 AM
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